The present invention relates to multipurpose folding hand tools, and particularly to such a tool including pliers or scissors whose handles fold around their jaws or blades.
Many types of multipurpose pocket tools are known in which various knife blades, screwdrivers, or other tool bits fold into storage locations within either of a pair of handles, while each jaw of a pair of pliers or blade of a pair of scissors is also connected to a respective one of the handles. In some such tools the handles are configured as channels of formed sheet metal that are able to pivot around the bases of the pliers jaws, to reduce the size of the tool so that it can be carried in a person's pockets and presents the outside of the channel-shaped handles as the outer surface of the folded tool. Such a tool is disclosed, for example, in. Leatherman U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,862.
Use of a knife blade, screwdriver or other tool bit of such a tool requires that the handles first be spread apart from each other, and, after a selected blade is unfolded from its storage position within one of the channel-shaped handles, the handles are held together while the tool bit is used. Use of the pliers in such a tool requires simply that the handles be unfolded, that is, pivoted outward from their folded positions with respect to the pliers jaws, but this leaves the edges of the channel sides of the handles facing outward, so that squeezing the handles to grip an object between the pliers jaws requires force to be exerted directly against the edges of the channel sides. Since this may be uncomfortable, it is desired to provide a tool having similar capabilities but having the smooth outer surface of the channel base of each handle oriented outward to be contacted in squeezing the pliers handles together to grip an object in the pliers jaws. At the same time it is still desired to be able to fold the handles easily about the pliers jaws to reduce the overall size of the tool when the pliers are not in use. It is also desired to be able to select and unfold one of the knife blades, screwdrivers, or other tool bits from its storage position in one of the handles without then having to manipulate the handles before using the blade, and it is desired for the multi-purpose tool to be compact, present a pleasing appearance and have a shape that is unlikely to cause rapid wear of a pocket in which the folded tool is carried.